LINNEAN aOClEIY OF LONDON. 



Ixi 



recent parts of the Transactions or Proceedings of the Eoyal Swedish 

 Academy, the Insects by Holmgren, the MoUusca by Morch, the 

 Phaenogamic Flora by T. M. Fries, and the Algae by Agardh. 



An excellent and elaborate monograph of a smaU but widely 

 spread genus of Plants, entitled ' Prodromus Monographiae Georum,' 

 by N. J. Scheutz, has appeared in the last part of the Transactions 

 of the Academy of Upsala. Several interesting features in the 

 geographical distribution of some of the species are pointed out, 

 amongst which one of the most curious is the almost perfect iden-. 

 tity of the Q. coccmeum from the Levant and the G. chilense from 

 South Chile, the differences being such only as would scarcely have 

 been set down as more than varieties had both come from the same 

 country. The whole memoir is in the Latin language ; the specific 

 diagnoses are rather long ; but the observations under each section 

 and species point out the connexion with and chief differences from 

 the nearest allies. 



The whole of the botanical literature published in or relating to 

 Sweden has been regularly recorded in annual catalogues, inserted 

 by T. 0. B. N. Krok in the ' Botaniske Notiser ' of Stockholm. 



III. K.USSIA. 



The chief interest in the biology of Russia consists in its compa- 

 rative uniformity over an enormous expanse of territory. Extending 

 over more than 130 degrees from east to west, and above 20 degrees 

 from south to north, without the interposition of any great geolo- 

 gical break in mountain * or ocean, all changes in flora and fauna 

 in the length and breadth of this vast area are gradual ; whilst the 

 mountains which bound it to the south and to the east, and the 

 glacial characters of the northern shores, offer to the Russian natu- 

 ralist several more or less distinct biological types, such as the 

 Caucasian, the Central Asiatic, the Mantchurian, and the Arctic, all 

 blending into the great Europeo-Asiatic type, and the three first- 

 named, at least apparently, constituting great centres of preservation. 

 By the careful discrimination of the various races which give to 

 each of these types its distinctive character, the study of their 

 mutual relations, of the areas which each one occupies without 

 modification, of the complicated manner in which these several 

 areas are interwoven, of the gradual changes which distance may 



* The celebrated chain of the Oural, wbich separates Asia from Europe, is, 

 in the greater part of its length, too low and the ascent too gradual to hare 

 much influence on the vegetation : the so-called ridge between Perm and 

 Ekaterinburg is, according to Ermann, not 1600 feet above the level of the sea, 

 and rises from land which, for a breadth of above 120 miles, is onlv 700 

 feet lower. 



